MAE 377

Final Project
Compressed Air Powered Engine
Bhushan Karayilthekkoot
12/14/2009
 Contents
Contents ........................................................................................................................................................ 2
1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................... 3
2 PROBLEM DEFINITION........................................................................................................................... 3
3 DESIGN GOALS ...................................................................................................................................... 3
4 Research on Similar Products ............................................................................................................... 4
4.1 Product survey .............................................................................................................................. 4
4.2 Pros and Cons................................................................................................................................ 5
5 PROJECT MANAGEMENT....................................................................................................................... 6
6 ALTERNATIVE DESIGNS AND DESIGN SELECTION ................................................................................. 7
6.1 Sketches ........................................................................................................................................ 7
6.1.1 Design 1 ................................................................................................................................. 8
6.1.2 Design 2 ............................................................................................................................... 10
6.1.3 Design 3 ............................................................................................................................... 11
6.2 Design Selection: ......................................................................................................................... 12
7 DISCUSSION......................................................................................................................................... 48
8 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................................... 49

2
1 INTRODUCTION
In today’s date around 85% of the energy produced in USA has its source from some kind of
fossil fuel. We consume around 25% of the world’s crude oil with 5% of the world’s
population. A major part of this consumption is in forms of fuel (Gasoline or Diesel) for
engines running our cars, lawnmowers, trucks, moppets and all kinds of equipment in which
an engine can be used. The major problem with this is that the sources for these fuels are not
will run out and moreover the byproducts released while burning them create a number of
environmental and health problems for people all over the world. My product which is an
Engine that could run entirely on compressed air could be a tentative solution to all these
problems.

2 PROBLEM DEFINITION
The purpose of this project is to develop a design for an engine which can tentatively run
completely on compressed air. The engine must be able to work without producing any
carbon footprint, must be cost effective and should be able to beat the competition in terms
of ingenuity and esthetics.

3 DESIGN GOALS
The engine should be able to work entirely on compressed air.
The engine should work without any manual supervision
Should produce a displacement of at least 125cc.
A bare minimum of 5HP should be tentatively produced using the engine.
As small and light weight as possible

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4 Research on Similar Products
4.1 Product survey
My research on similar product has taken me to the following options:

Product
Pictures Features Cost
Name
Extremely environment friendly: produces
water vapor as a byproduct of internal
combustion.
High Energy Efficiency: A typical gas $3000-$4000
Hydrogen powered engine uses around 20% of fuel to (Manufacturing
Fuel Cell power the vehicle while thi product can use
40%-60% of fuel to power the car. Cost)
Can produce up to 134 HP of power
Works on Hydrogen.

Outstanding Efficiency: up to 100% over gas

engines.
Simple but extremely efficient design.
Di Pietro
Low moving parts and virtually no friction and N/A
Engine vibration.
Only 1Psi of pressure needed to overcome the
friction.
Works on Compressed Air.
Table 1: Product Survey
4.2 Pros and Cons
Product names
Hydrogen Fuel Cell
Di Pietro Enigine
Table 2: Pro & Cons of Competitive product.
Pros Cons
Extremely Fuel Efficient. Extremely expensive: both
Zero green house gas the engine and the fuel.
emission. Fuel not readily available
Can produce a good and expensive to produce.
amount of power. Winter risk: because it
produces water vapor as
an emission the engine
will not produce same
efficiency in colder
regions.
Almost 100% efficiency Still in Prototype Phase.
compared to gasoline The exclusive research
powered engines. could reflect in the form
Works entirely on the of high cost when
pressure from launched.
compressed air.
Has virtually no friction
or vibration.
5 PROJECT MANAGEMENT
To manage this project and its technicalities I have created a Gantt chart to visualize how I will be going forward with it. I have

allocated specific timing for all the steps in the process of finishing this project before due date in the Gantt chart.

Objective Start End November December # of Days

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Project Proporsal 11/10/2009 11/13/2009 3
Phase 1 11/13/2009 11/17/2009 4
Gantt Chart 11/15/2009 11/17/2009 2
Research on Altertnative Products 11/13/2009 11/17/2009 4
Phase 2 11/13/2009 11/23/2009 10
Alternative Designs 11/13/2009 11/23/2009 10
Design Decision 11/19/2009 11/23/2009 4
Phase 3 11/23/2009 12/5/2009 12
3-D Modelling 11/23/2009 12/5/2009 12
2-D Drawings 12/3/2009 12/5/2009 2
User Manual 12/3/2009 12/5/2009 2
Final Phase 12/4/2009 12/10/2009 6
Power Point 12/8/2009 12/10/2009 2
Presention 12/7/2009 12/10/2009 3
Final Report 12/4/2009 12/9/2009 5
Website 12/8/2009 12/10/2009 2

Table 3: Gantt Chart

6 ALTERNATIVE DESIGNS AND DESIGN SELECTION

6.1 Sketches
The sketches below are my tentative designs for the engine. The first 2 have a piston cylinder

design while the last one has a rotary engine design.

6.1.1 Design 1

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The first design has a conical piston and cylinder. The design help keep the pressure from

diverging exponentially. The system works in the following pattern:

The air gushes in and forces the piston to move upwards.

This compresses the springs attached to the piston.
At the same time attached to the piston is a Valve controlling mechanism which cuts the
supply of air to the cylinder.
Without any air coming in the compressed springs start to relax and push the piston down
again.
The exhaust valves at the bottom of the cylinder open up at this point and allow the air to
escape.
When the Piston reaches the lower most point it triggers the valve controlling mechanism
which opens the valve and the entire cycle repeats again.

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6.1.2 Design 2

The second design works almost the same way as the first one except for the fact that it uses a
regular flat piston. Also this design includes a air compressor which can compress air back for
fueling the engine. The valves are controlled by the camshafts which in turn controlled by the
crankshaft. The valves here are to the side of the cylinder and the notch in the cylinder head
forces gases out of the cylinder.
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6.1.3 Design 3

Fig 1: A) Alternative Design #1; B) Alternative Design # 2; C) Alternative Design #3.

The third design is a conventional rotary fan design. When compressed air passes though the

blades it creates a torque. This torque rotates the crank shaft which can power the engine. But

due to the ample surface area I assume its efficiency will not be to par.

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6.2 Design Selection:

Goals
Alternative
Total
Designs Efficiency Weight Eco-friendly Cost Aesthetics
(25%) (25%) (10%) (30%) (10%)
Design 1 20 20 10 20 8 78

Design 2 23 18 10 28 8 87

Design 3 10 24 10 25 8 77

From the above table I decided to design number 2.

7 3-D CAD MODELS
The 3-D CAD Modeling involves using a CAD Software (Pro E) to create CAD Models of the
Engine. Every part of the product needs to created and then assembled. These parts we created
keeping in mind the basic sub assemblies which make up the important parts of the Engine, the
other parts which are not in the sub assembly are grouped together based on similarity in
working, shape, position or complexity.

7.1 ENGINE PISTON SUB-ASSEMBLY

This is the core of the design. The piston is flat and produces a 125cc displacement. It also is
connected to the reaction spring and reaction spring guide, which makes the exhaust phase
possible. The piston slides up and down this guide.

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 B

C D

14
E F

G H

I J

15
 K L
Fig 2: A) Piston Assembly; B) Piston Assembly Exploded; C) Piston Head; D) Piston Head in
different view; E) Piston Pin; F) Piston ring; G) Snap Ring; H) Piston Shaft; I) Bottom Part of
Piston Shaft; J) Shaft Bolt.

7.2 ENGINE VALVES

These valves control the intake and exhaust of the engine. The intake valve is a circular plug
which is place in the intake pipe and pivoted by the push rod while the exhaust valves are place
in the cylinder and are very similar to conventional engine valves. Both these valves have
individual camshafts to control them.

7.2.1 INTAKE VALVE

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 A B

C D
Fig 3: A) Exhaust valve; B) Exhaust push rod; C) Exhaust Valve Spring; D) Exhaust valve pin.

7.2.2 EXHAUST VALVE

A B

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 C D
Fig 3: A) Intake valve; B) Intake push rod(top); C) Intake push rod(bottom); D) intake valve
pin;.

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7.3 SHAFTS
This engine has 2 Camshafts and 2 Crankshafts which control the timing and creates the torque.
Out of these the engine has the main crankshaft and 2 camshafts for timing, while the air
compressor has the second crankshaft. The crank shaft in the engine controls the other 2
camshafts using gears. The gears were a very complex part to draw as it required a lot of
calculation to figure out the right size and teeth ratio. This ensures that the camshafts rotate at
half the speed of the crankshaft.

A B

C D

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 E F
Fig 4: A) Exhaust camshaft; B) Exhaust camshaft in a different view; C) Intake Camshaft; D)
Intake Camshaft in a different view; E) Crankshaft; F) Air compressor crankshaft.

7.4 ENGINE HEAD

This part consists of the cylinder head and the intake pipe. The intake pipe was a pretty easy part
to model but so was not the case with the cylinder head. The cylinder head was extremely
complicated and had to be modeled very carefully as it would guide how the cylinder of the
engine would look like. The cooling fins on the head gives the engine a realistic texture, although
for a compressed air powered engine with no exothermic reactions the fins need not be this long.

A B

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 C
Fig 3: A) Cylinder Head; B) Cylinder Head in a different view; C) Intake Pipe.

7.5 ENGINE CYLINDER

This is most complex and important part of the entire design. It is extremely detailed and houses
the entire engine. It took a lot of tries to get this part right. The fins are made using pattern and
feature like boundary blend are also used here.

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 B

C
Fig 4: A) Engine Cylinder; B) Engine Cylinder in a different view; C) Engine Cylinder from the
bottom.

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7.6 BELT PULLEY ASEMBLY
This assembly drives the air compressor. It is a simple assembly. It has 2 pulleys and a belt along
with the pulley keys. The only thing I had to take in to consideration was that to increase the
efficiency of the air-compressor the second pulley had to be half the size of the first one. Because
it is a belt pulley I have included trapezoidal patterns in the pulleys and belt to make it look
realistic.

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C D

E F

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 G
Fig 5: A) Belt-Pulley Assembly Exploded; B) Belt-Pulley Assembly; C) Smaller Pulley; D)
Bigger Pulley; E) Bigger Key; F) Smaller Key; G) Belt.

7.7 AIR-COMPRESSOR CYLINDER

This part was fairly simple compared to the engine cylinder. But due to the exquisite details on it
I have identified it separately.

A
Fig 3: A) Air Compressor Cylinder.

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7.8 AIRCOMPRESSOR PISTON ASSEMBLY
This assembly is exactly similar to the engine piston assembly except for the lack of the guide
and spring. The piston here is smaller in size but displaces almost the same amount of air. Also
there is only one piston ring in this assembly; this is to increase the efficiency of the compressor.
Also the size of the ring is larger here compared to the engine.

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C D

E F

G H

27
 I J

Fig 6: A) Piston Assembly; B) Piston Assembly Exploded; C) Piston Head; D) Piston Head in
different view; E) Piston Pin; F) Piston ring; G) Snap Ring; H) Shaft Bolt; I) Piston Shaft;
J) Bottom Part of Piston Shaft;.

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7.9 AIR-COMPRESSOR HEAD
This design is probably the most conceptual one in this assembly. The air-compressor head
accommodates two one way valves facing in opposite directions functioning as intake and
exhaust.

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B

30
D E

F G

31
 H I

Fig 7: A) Air Compressor Head Exploded; B) Air Compressor Head Showing Inner mechanism;
C) Air Compressor Head assembly; D) Air Compressor Head; E) Compressor head in different
view; F) Rivet; G) Valve; H) Valve base; I) Valve spring.

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8 ASSEMBLY
The assembly was easy enough with all the subassemblies sorted out. Rendered pictured of the
assembly and its special feature are highlighted below.

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C

34
E

35
 G

Fig 8: A) ,B), D) Rendered pictures of engine in different views; D), E) , F), G)Rendered picture
of engine showing internal mechanism.

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9 2-D Technical drawings
9.1 BOM

A
Fig 9: Bill of Materials for the Compressed Air Powered Engine.
9.2 Sub-Assemblies
9.2.1 Engine –Piston Assembly

A
Fig 9: A) 2-D Drawing of Engine-Piston assembly.

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9.2.2 Engine Valves

Fig 10: A) 2-D Drawing of Engine valves.

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9.2.3 Shafts

A
Fig 11: A) 2-D Drawing of Shafts.

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9.2.4 Engine Head

A
Fig 12: A) 2-D Drawing of Engine Head.

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9.2.5 Engine Cylinder

A
Fig 13: A) 2-D Drawing of Engine Cylinder.

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9.2.6 Belt-Pulley Assembly

A
Fig 14: A) 2-D Drawing of Belt-Pulley assembly.

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9.2.7 Air -Compressor Cylinder

A
Fig 15: A) 2-D Drawing of Air-compressor Cylinder.

44
9.2.8 Air-Compressor Piston Assembly

A
Fig 16: A) 2-D Drawing of Air-Compressor Cylinder assembly.

45
9.2.9 Air-Compressor Head

A
Fig 17: A) 2-D Drawing of Air-Compressor Head assembly.

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10 Animation
The Animation shows all the parts flying away to demonstrate all the parts in this assembly. The
Working although turned out to be more difficult than I imagined it to be. Because of lack of
time to figure it out I decided to skip the working of the engine in the animation. I have a
rendered and non-rendered animation in which the rendered animation shows various materials
used in the engine with exquisite detail.

A
 B
Fig 18: A) Rendered Animation; B) Non-Rendered Animation

11 DISCUSSION
This proposal was pretty much brain storming and this is usually the fun part. This is where we
get to use our imagination and come up with stuff which will intrigue people and you never
know if you just stumbled on to a new invention. The animation for Design turned out to be
extremely difficult. With over 46 parts the creating a exploded view in animation was pretty
difficult, but

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12 CONCLUSION
The project was the most brain racking one I have done till date. It forced me to think in the
way a real world engineer would think. It is not only about creating a product learning how
to present it in a professional way so that it could reach the masses. The chances of this
engine to work in a real life are slim without proper R&D data. Also there might be various
structural flaws in this design as the materials I have used and the shape and size of in which
they are used could be inaccurate. Even if there is no structural flaw the efficiency this
engine would give is questionable. But maybe with enough research such an engine could be
manufactured in real.

13 References
Sham Tickoo, “Totorial1”, in Pro/Engineer Wildfire for Designers, CADCIM
Technologies, 2003.
http://macmastercar.com

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